The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has published a report on NHS maternity services across the country, and our Maternity Unit was shown to be outperforming the national average in a number of key areas.

The unit achieved the expected standards in each of the assessed areas and has an emergency caesarean section rate that is lower than any other London teaching hospital, an outstanding achievement due to the complex and high-risk nature of many of the cases that our team sees each year.

Training for staff in the use of forceps and vacuums has been one of the factors that have helped contribute to our low caesarean section rates.

The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit Report also highlighted that our unit is below the national average for babies born with brain damage.

The unit’s commitment to training for staff, combined with the use of a fetal ECG machine, has helped drive these results, and reduce the numbers of babies born with brain damage.

All staff on the unit are trained and tested on fetal physiology and St George’s, which became the first Trust to introduce compulsory testing for Maternity staff on fetal physiology, has helped to introduce this training in six other hospitals.

Dr Edwin Chandraharan, Lead Clinician, Labour Ward, was thrilled with the positive feedback in the report: “It’s great to see multi-disciplinary team working and our intense training on fetal physiology improving outcomes for mums and babies who come through our Maternity Unit here at St George’s.”

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